Niagara Bottling to pilot enzymatic PET recycling at Vernon plant

Niagara Bottling and biotech startup Rhea's Factory will test Rhea's enzymatic PET depolymerisation platform, RheaCycle, at industrial scale at Niagara's PET recycling facility in Vernon, California. The project is one of nine selected under the US Department of Energy's Industrial Technology Validation programme, which is providing USD 3m in combined funding across all nine projects, with results independently verified by DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Why this mattersA successful industrial-scale test could open mechanically unrecyclable PET streams, such as thermoforms and textiles, to food-grade recycling.

• DOE's Industrial Technology Validation programme selected nine projects nationwide for a combined USD 3m in funding
• RheaCycle uses AI-designed enzymes to break PET into terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, which can be repolymerised to virgin-equivalent PET
• Test site is Niagara's PET recycling facility in Vernon, California, acquired from rPlanet Earth in May 2026
• Performance will be independently measured by DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• Site preparation is underway, with installation and commissioning expected to take up to six months before validation begins
• RheaCycle will run as a parallel line, targeting feedstocks such as thermoforms, contaminated PET and polyester textiles outside the mechanical recycling spec

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